Arizona's Noble Stand

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 11, 1912

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 39, No. 23.

Arizona's Noble Stand

CALIFORNIA is not alone in her refusal to enact a Sunday law. Arizona, by a substantial majority in both houses, in entering statehood rejects a Sunday bill. Faithful work in enlightening the legislators of that new commonwealth doubtless had much to do with it. Mr. J. F. Blunt, secretary of the Western League for the Preservation of Civil Liberty, associated with Messrs. W. M. Healey, G. W. Reaser, H. G. Thurston, and other religious liberty workers, presented a memorial to the legislature, in which the real principles of liberty and the results of church-and-state union were faithfully set forth. For instance, this memorial, after referring to God's bestowal of rights and man's efforts to subvert them, declares that "these multiplied failures to dominate the minds and hearts of men, and to regulate their religious worship by force, do not deter mankind from renewed appeals to the civil power, for administrative orders and legislative enactments that would curtail the liberties of their fellows and constrain their judgment in the realms of conscience;" and further recites that "these encroachments on the individual rights of citizens have almost invariably begun in the exaltation of the first day of the week as a day of compulsory rest, notwithstanding the conviction of many that the law of God is not subject to human amendment, and notwithstanding the undeniable right of the individual citizen, so far as the State is concerned, to choose for himself which day he will observe as a day of rest, or whether he will rest at all."

The memorial then presents the "conviction that civil and religious liberty, the treasured heritage of our fathers, ought to be maintained throughout the republic, and deplores the effort to curtail the free exercise of religious conviction by civil process, and the attempt to force upon others the conclusions of any man, or any set of men, as to which day is the Sabbath, or to regulate by civil law any religious custom or ceremonial." It points out that "the State, in the proper exercise of the functions of government, has no right to discriminate in favor of or against any citizen or citizens on account of his or their religious opinions or ceremonials, and the State legislature is distinctly asked to refrain from the passage of any law the adoption of which would make it unlawful to transact any business on Sunday not prohibited on other days of the week, and that no special privileges or exemptions be granted to any class of citizens not accorded to, or required of, all other citizens of the State."

We will present before our readers at some later time the whole of this memorial. It is certainly worthy of preservation.

There are lovers of freedom, indifferent tho they may be in this present struggle, who, when the struggle deepens, will stand for liberty. They ought to see in the evil principles of church-and-state union now their dire consequences if enacted into law. Evidently there were those in Arizona who did. We believe that there are those in California who will not yield to religious combinations to effect a political object. Altho there may be Sunday laws in other States, we are glad that there are two States which are standing for freedom. To borrow a stanza from Whittier:

"All is not lost. The angel of God's blessing Encamps with Freedom on the field of fight; Still to her banner, day by day, are pressing Unlooked-for allies, striking for the right! Courage, then, Northern hearts! — Be firm, be true! What one brave State hath done, can ye not also do?"